Monday, November 30, 2015

For more than seven
years, a group of U-M students come back from a summer abroad, transformed.
They travel to the Dominica Republic, Peru, the Philippines, Uganda,
Ecuador and elsewhere in the world. They work to mitigate water pollution,
assist grassroot community health organizations, support youth in marginalized
populations, develop health care workshops in underserved populations, and
other independent projects they design themselves. They are Wallenberg Summer
Travel Award recipients.

Katie Finn traveled to
Uganda, working with children who suffer cognitive impairment as a result of
sever episodes of cerebral malaria. Of
her experience, she says, “We can come in as Western practitioners and save the
day with our technology and interventions, but I really learned that we have so
much more to learn from what they have to teach us and how we provide care, how
we interact with patients.”

Ryan Thomas lived in the
Dominican Republic, working with physicians and clinicians to determine needs
assessment in rural healthcare environments.
He was reminded of the legacy he’s honoring: “In the spirit of the
incredible legacy of Raoul Wallenberg, I hoped to accomplish something important
and meaningful that would positively impact the lives of others. I can only
dream to do something as big and powerful and impact as many people. That will
be my goal."

The Wallenberg Summer
Travel Awards allows selected students to take part in a community service
project or civic participation anywhere in the world, such as volunteer work
with a humanitarian organization such as a school, clinic or aid program, or
the exploration of humanitarian issues not well understood in the US.

The program honors the
legacy of Raoul Wallenberg, who, as a student at the University of Michigan in
the 1930s, traveled across North America to observe and learn from people of
all kinds on their own terms. This experience helped him understand the human
condition, and shaped his lifelong concern for human dignity and humanitarian
values. His heroic efforts during World War II to rescue the surviving Jews of
Budapest are an inspiring demonstration of how one individual can make a difference
in the world.

Applications for the
Wallenberg Summer Travel program are open through February 15, 2016 at 11:59pm.
More information can be found at our website and MCompass.